AMC Now Says It Won’t Allow Texting in Its Theaters

Just days after confessing, in an interview with Variety, that he was open to the idea of allowing texting in some of his movie theaters, AMC CEO Adam Aron has reversed course. Non-texters, you can continue to patronize AMC; in a statement, Aron announced that “there will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres. Not today, not tomorrow and not in the foreseeable future.” And he was the one that put “NO TEXTING ALLOWED” in all caps so you know he means business.

Aron says that “unlike many AMC advancements that you have applauded, we have heard loud and clear that this is a concept our audience does not want.” And in the immediate wake of that Variety interview, reaction was loud and mostly very negative. (Including this piece about how any plan to allow some texting in theaters is doomed to failure by yours truly, which I’m going to assume made a huge impact on AMC’s decision.)

Here’s the full press release:

This is a major relief. There are several AMC Theatres in New York City, and actually the theater in Times Square, the AMC Empire, recently upgraded one of their screens to the “Dolby Cinema” mentioned in the press release. It has incredible sound (during The Jungle Book the animal stampedes actually rattled the room), good picture quality, and very comfortable reclining chairs. It might be the single place to see a movie in all of New York. It would have been a shame to stop going there because the people in the theater would be texting the whole time.